[lubuntu-users] iso weirdness Diskutil, gparted, MKUSB

[Nio Wiklund]

Hi scrooyahoo,

[replying inline]

Best regards
Nio

Den 2016-08-06 kl. 03:52, skrev scrooyahoo at riseup.net:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I experience some weird behaviour with the FreeDOS ISO
>
> I flashed FreeDOS to an USB.
> when i plug the USB in i can open the partition and browse the FreeDOS
> directories
>
> However, when i tru to boot the drive the Acer does not detect it.
>
> Then i tought, to flash it againg but then by usin Unetbootin.
>
> BUT Unetbooting does not detect the USB either
> So i look with Gparted. and when i select the drive this-one says
> UNALLOCATED SPACE
> Then back to MKUSB.. BUT MKUSB no longer sees the USB
> But in PCman i can just browse the drive withouth issues..

I don't understand what happens. Maybe you can run some commands and 
post the output in a reply.

- Run the system, where pcmanfm can see the drive with FreeDOS

- Open a terminal window

- Run the following commands and post the output (copy and paste to an 
email window),

df -h
sudo parted -ls
sudo lsblk -f
sudo lsblk -m

> Then i installed the Diskutillity from gnome
>
> And thisone sees the USB but it can't remove or edit the partition.
>
> So back to Gparted, this time Gparted does NOTsee the USB.
>
> back again to diskutil
> unmounted and remounted the partition
> back to gparted and now it again sees /dev/sdb as unallocated diskspace.
> Warning: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label
>
> Is there something that i'm missing? Something that diskutil can do that
> gparted can not?  And MKUSB why does that no-longer see the USB stick?

Try to remember what you have changed in the computer, for example some 
setting in a BIOS menu.

Can you see make the system see another pendrive (with some other content)?

> Is there anotherapplication then Diskutilliy or Gparted that is able to
> at least let me remove the partition and format the stick?

What happens in another computer?

> I'm sure i'm overlooking something.

What happens after shutting down, waiting for 5 minutes and cold booting?

> The unrecognised disklabel is that caused by the FreeDOS iso or could it
> be a bug in MKUSB?
> I'd like to try to flash FreeDOS with Unetbootin but cant figure out why
> Unetbootin does not see the USB at all.

Read about FreeDOS at its web page, and use a method and tool that is 
recommended to install it into a USB pendrive.

For example this page

https://www.chtaube.eu/computers/freedos/bootable-usb/

suggests to first expand with bzip2 before flashing. mkusb is made to 
expand files compressed with gzip and xz (but not bzip2), so you must 
use it in a two-step procedure, first expand, then flash alias install 
into a USB drive.

So check with sha1sum, that the download was good,

sha1sum FreeDOS-1.1-memstick-2-2048M.img.bz2
187ce046066b7a70039a46d7c3a24dd52a8dc049

and create 'FreeDOS-1.1-memstick-2-2048M.img' with the following command

bzcat FreeDOS-1.1-memstick-2-2048M.img.bz2 > 
FreeDOS-1.1-memstick-2-2048M.img

and use it with the following command

sudo -H mkusb FreeDOS-1.1-memstick-2-2048M.img

in a computer, where the target pendrive is recognized.

You can also use dd or some other tool to get it into a pendrive by the 
*cloning* method. Do not use Unetbootin.